Shem Tov UnisexOrigin: biblicalIn Israel: steady
YonaIn Hebrew: יונה · meaning, pronunciation and popularity in Israel
With vowel points: יוֹנָהRomanization: Yoná
Yona (Hebrew: יונה) is a unisex name of biblical origin. 4,852 people born in Israel between 1949 and 2024 have it today, according to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). In 2024 it was given to 7 girls and ranked #863. Its peak year was 1950, with 246 babies.
- People in Israel
- 4,852
- born 1949–2024
- Babies in 2024
- 7
- rank #863
- Peak year
- 1950
- 246 babies
- USA
- —
- not in the SSA list
Writing and saying Yona
In Hebrew letters the name is יונה, read right to left. Yona is the Latin spelling recorded by our review; families choose their own spelling in passports, so you may also meet other forms. Wiktionary romanizes it as "Yoná" (the accent marks the stressed syllable).
Meaning and origin
- Jonah (a minor prophet who was cast into the sea and swallowed by a great fish)
- Jonah (a book of the Old Testament and the Hebrew Tanakh)
- a male or female given name, Yona and Yonah, equivalent to English Jonah
Quoted from English Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0), unchanged.
Yona by year in Israel
How many girls out of every 10,000 born each year have the name. For Israel it counts the people born that year who carry the name today (the CBS counts residents by year of birth, not birth registrations).
per 10,000 babies of the same sex
Related Israeli names
Spelling variants and names that look or sound close in Hebrew.
Questions about Yona
How do you write Yona in Hebrew?
Yona is written יונה in Hebrew (with vowel points: יוֹנָה). Hebrew is read right to left. A dictionary romanization is "Yoná".
How many people in Israel are named Yona?
4,852 people born between 1949 and 2024 carry the name יונה: 2,438 women and 2,414 men. The count comes from the CBS table of current first names by year of birth; years with fewer than 5 people are not published.
Is Yona a boy's or a girl's name?
Both. In Israel 50% of the people named יונה are women and 50% are men, so we count it as unisex (our threshold: at least 20% of the less common sex).
What does the name Yona mean?
English Wiktionary describes it as: "Jonah (a minor prophet who was cast into the sea and swallowed by a great fish)"
Sources
Israel: Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), current first names of people born 1949–2024 by sex, population group and year of birth, processed 2026-09-27. CBS publications.